


It Has To Be You

by Rhonda



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguously Transgender Characters, Angst, Brain Fog, Crimson Flowers, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Flat Affect, Gender-Neutral My Unit | Byleth, I Cannot Self-Terminate, Identity Issues, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28107420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhonda/pseuds/Rhonda
Summary: After the battle of Arianrhod, Byleth is troubled by feelings that can only be addressed by a certain Marquis.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Hubert von Vestra, My Unit | Byleth/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	It Has To Be You

The Star Terrace was an oft shunned place at Garreg Mach. To reach it one must pass by the now vacant Archbishop’s Quarters, a place avoided by both the superstitious and skeptical alike amongst the Empire’s Army. Whether or not the place truly had any ambient godly magics remaining didn’t matter, all who ventured to the third floor described an eerie eldritch feeling in its presence.

On account of this it served as the perfect place for Byleth to get some time to themself. Being the lynchpin of the Imperial war machine didn’t leave a lot of down time, and solitude in the occupied monastery was at a premium.

Despite the Great Tree Moon bringing increasingly warmer and warmer winds up from Enbarr, comforting homesick soldiers, it still could be quite cold atop the monastery, and as the sun set and the stars came out above, Byleth found their gaze drifting downward as a second set of stars came out below in the form of the many fires from the Imperial army camped across the valley floor. They felt a tinge of jealousy at the thought of warming themselves beside one and a second tinge of nostalgia remembering the way they had camped with their father’s band of mercenaries while on the various campaigns that made up the patchwork memories of their teenage years.

They would really be moving towards Fhirdiad by the end of this month. For real this time, no fooling, and the wish in everyone’s beating heart was that perhaps the war might be over before the summer. As for the wishes in those with unbeating hearts, Byleth could only speculate.

What did they want, really? Would they ever know? As if to answer, the goddess saw that moment fit to send Hubert out to join them on the Star Terrace. He had been looking for them to inquire about some last minute adjustments to the supply line, but when he found them like that his priorities shifted. It was rare that Hubert would spare more than a few moments on the wellbeing of his comrades when there wasn’t an immediate tactical necessity, and even more so when there was urgent work that required his attention. Even still, as of late he’d been making more and more exceptions to linger around Byleth. Whatever it was, whatever they both were together, Byleth was pretty sure that they were happy for his presence, or at least as close to happy as they thought they could get.

The two exchanged a typical spartan set of plesanties and they answered his questions about supply chain management, yet he remained, leaning against the wall, staring out over the sea of twinkling man-made stars. If Byleth was happy for his presence, they figured they should let him know that, lest he get bored and leave. Byleth did their best to think back on all the times that Jeralt tried to tell them about how to talk to members of the opposite gender. They didn’t think any of that stuff would apply here for loads of reasons. Still they felt an uncharacteristic knot in their stomach and a desire to let out their thoughts to this man in a way they never thought they could do with anyone else.

“I’ve always had trouble… feeling,” they started, breaking the easy silence. Hubert would never settle for idle chatter, believing that a knowing and friendly silence could accomplish just as much. They weighed their words carefully. It wasn’t typical of Byleth to get thoughts nuanced enough to require more than a sentence or two. The only times they ever needed more to express themself was during technical tactical subjects, either in the classroom for lectures or more recently during strategy meetings. But this was important, and it took all of Byleth’s concentration to hold their feelings in their head and keep them from slipping away like sand through a sieve. “Even now it’s hard for me to feel, but sometimes with you it’s easier. I don’t know why.”

Hubert turned from the balcony and faced them, crossing his arms and leaning back in the appraising way he always did when the two of them had their infrequent heart-to-hearts. 

“I can’t possibly imagine why that might be,” he said with a truly impossible to parse mix of indignant irony and genuine curiosity as to how their relationship had become so intimate given the sum of the circumstances surrounding it. Byleth felt like they weren’t getting anywhere fast.

“Remember what you said to me in the cathedral that day?” they blurted out, in a voice that would have sounded exactly as their standard monotone to any but the most familiar ears. Hubert gave a small, if sad, smile.

“That if I had but two lives, I might give one to you.” He left the second half of the sentiment unsaid. ‘We could be a couplet of birds, flying alongside the sovereign of Black Eagles,’ a set of words that Byleth had memorized rote so as to pretend to long for them in their moments both quiet and loud. They wished they could pine for such a romance, or at least thought they ought to, and so whether endogenously or not, the words bounced around the foggy empty hollow that was Byleth’s mind every night before they went to sleep.

“Not that, the other thing you said to me.”

Hubert steepled his fingers. Byleth didn’t believe for a moment that he couldn’t recall any of his words that day or any day that they had spent together, and yet either from a hitherto unknown awkwardness or from a still un-deprogrammed code of noble propriety he refused to say them aloud. It didn’t matter, Byleth was more than willing to specify.

“That if I were to lose my humanity, you would do what must be done,” they said.

Hubert looked to collect his thoughts himself for a moment, then a moment more. He seemed to be playing a mental game of chess with himself. While a master tactician on the field of battle, his strategy when it came to interpersonal relationships was certainly something that required his full attention. Especially when it came to this one; with love, or whatever they both could produce that might pass for it, on the table.

“If I recall,” he began after the silence had long precipitated, “I said that your present state makes you uniquely close to our enemy. Though I don’t think anyone could doubt your commitment to Her Majesty or her cause, especially now. I am unsure precisely what your goal is in bringing this up, but you should know that even with regard to my personal feelings toward you, I stand by what I said that day.”

“I should hope so,” Byleth said and quickly picked up on a small shock that flashed over Hubert’s face. At first they attributed it to their words themselves but quickly realized they had emoted quite a bit with them. This subject must be an especially raw nerve for them if it could cause that.

“My humanity,” Byleth continued, allowing themselves ample time to ramble their way through their labyrinthian thoughts, “I’ve always had trouble feeling. I used to think it was just the same, because I was born wrong in all the other ways, but I suppose I always knew I wasn’t fully human. This parasite, it’s just another status with regard to my body that’s been forced onto me, something that determined who I had to be without my consent.”

“Like nobles and their crests,” Hubert interjected during an especially long pause.

“Like you not being able to be a pegasus knight because of the way you were born,” they added, trying to force a smile that might signal an attempt at levity. A small glimpse of something flashed across Huberts face before being replaced with one of his small genuine smiles, one of the ones that always made Byleth’s stomach feel the same as it did when they took the field against an unknown enemy.

“While I would follow El regardless,” said Hubert, “the thought that we might make a world where one’s life isn’t determined by how they were born is… very appealing to me. A world where women like her are able to be who they are. Where perhaps, if I were to have but two lives, years from now another young Hubert might grow and be the Pegasus Knight that he, or I suppose she, wanted to be.” There was a certain sadness in his eyes, one that was always there, but always came further into focus whenever Byleth and him spent time together. 

“I believe in everything we fight for even if my face fails to show it. But as for this life, you are still bound to your duty to be Marquis Vestra, and I am still stuck with an unbeating heart and a foggy dull head.”

“Were that we could be anyone but who were are,” Hubert said, more than a few ounces of sarcasm dripping from his words, but Bytleth could sense its good nature.

“I’ve always had trouble feeling,” Byleth repeated, trying to finally hone in and articulate what was so bothersome. “Even now it’s hard for me. But I do feel something of late very clearly. I’m afraid. I’m terrified, Hubert.” That caused him to double take, he looked at them like he had only just noticed them. Like he was appraising a lost puppy, or perhaps a horse with a broken leg. “I'm afraid of not being me. I’m already so far from being the real human I should have been and every day through the brain fog I can feel her voice still whispering to me. And it sounds more and more like my own voice, or maybe my voice is sounding more and more like hers.

“I’m me, I’m Byleth. If I’m ever not me, if the god parasite inside me ever takes over and I lose what last vestiges of the real me ever were there... Well, if I get any choice in who I am, in what kind of life I get to live, then...” Bytleth took a deep breath and looked Hubert straight into his piercing green eyes, “I want you to know that I want you to do what must be done. I want you to kill me.”

Hubert suddenly became very interested in his shoes. What a curious response this was, from a man who could so easily cut loose the strings of his closest family. He really did care.

“Hubert, you’re the only one I can trust. Few of the Black Eagles could even understand what I’m asking, and of them you’re the only one I know that could actually go through with it.” There was a silence. “I don’t trust Jeritza, it has to be you.”

“As I said, I stand by what I said that day.” 

“Say it,” they demanded with a chill that was further accentuated by a stiff breeze coming up off the valley floor. “Please.”

“I promise that should the day come when your humanity becomes fundamentally abject; regardless of my feelings, by the grace of our Emperor, I will not hesitate to kill you Byleth.”

“Thank you,” they said, letting out a breath that they had been holding in at least since their hair color changed, but probably even longer. There wasn’t anything else to say to that, and it didn’t seem like he had much to add either.

The two of them stood there like that for a while looking out over the mass of twinkling fires dotting the valley beneath Garreg Mach, evidence of the army camped below, evidence of the war they were waging, evidence of the world outside the Star Terrace. 

Byleth didn’t realize how close the two had gotten until they felt Hubert’s arm wrap around their shoulders. Two bodies caught in the cold have the tendency to group for warmth whether or not they mean to. Byleth shivered in the cold spring night even with his warm body so close.

Whatever it was they both were, it wasn’t something that would permit Hubert to lend them his cloak, at least not yet. Instead, to warm themself, Byleth pulled out their father’s old wooden flask, popped off the cap, and poured it full before handing it to Hubert who took it in a white gloved hand. In their own, they greedily held the flask itself ready to dull the creeping foriegn feelings that were slithering their way into their unbeating heart.

“Ah? A toast perhaps?” he said as he took the makeshift shot glass, an unmistakable humor about him.

“To the end of the war?” Byleth asked.

“Sure, and to humanity,”

“To El.”

“To El, and to the goal.”

“And to the goal,” Byleth confirmed.


End file.
